Family

We have just had an exhausting time of it lately.  We had friends come to stay for a week.  Then my bro' came to stay for two weeks.  Then, last week, our son, his partner, and our two grandchildren came to stay for a week.

Don't get me wrong, we love to see them all; and are very grateful that they make the effort to come all the way to the Scottish highlands to see us.  We have had a lovely time of it, as well.  Just being with friends and family who know us, love us and we have a history with - is relaxing in a way, too.

But, I could do with a rest, now!

Commission # 3 some bags, and some paintings

These are some of the bags I make for our knitting group.  These ones have a drawstring and, if they don't get sold at our flower festival, will go into Christmas boxes that are donated to the Blytheswood charity, and may go anywhere in the world, for people who need them.

As you can see there are other crafts that go on sale here as well.  Unfortunately, people seem to not want to pay 'real' money for them - eg these gorgeous granny square blankets only raise about £4 or £5 each.  Somebody had hand painted some ceramic tiles and was going to price them at 50p!  However, was persuaded to price them at £1, which is still far too cheap.

Ah well, the cash raised here and at another craft fair in August, will all go towards the boxes.

Also at the festival was an opportunity for local crafters to have sales tables, or just display their work.  I had recently taken a short oil painting course and decided to display some of my paintings.

 the city scape is Mr T's fave

the two on the left were my son's fave

It was scary to put myself  'out there' as it were!  But, some of my bags were sold - a lot before they reached the stall, which is gratifying.

Children's clothes

What a joy it is to be making stuff for little people!

Oh dear!  I made these for our baby grandson orginally, but the sizing was well out!  So, miss aged three has them, with a couple of yo-yos added for effect. (ps they do look better when the shoes are on, too)

The was the pair of trews he ended up with - in the new born size, despite him being a large size five months worth!  Nanny added the appliqué car with buttons.  The pattern for these has been in my cupboard for over twelve years, as I first did them for nanny's best girl, who is now aged 13!

These were made from vintage sheeting. 

 As is the next item - aged three's dress, here -

How cute is that, eh?  This one is the first of two I made from 'Weekend Sewing' which I just love, and will be using again and again, I'm sure.

Something that was promised a while ago is the cooking/painting pinney, so ta da!

She will grow into this, I'm sure!  This is nanny's own pattern.

Commission # 2 ta, da!

Another exciting project has, at last, been finished!

This dress began life as part of a huge pair of curtains, with pelmet, rescued from the charity shop where my brother works.  The manager, a lovely woman who, like me is rather addicted to vintage/retro clothing, wanted a dress made from the curtains and, would I be able to use a vintage pattern to do it? 

'Yes,' I said 'no problem!'

Except, I was busy and would become more so over the following months, oh dear.

However, as I wound down some of my work comittments, I found the time to just get on with it.

I first washed the fabric as I didn't know how old or how long it had been hung as curtaining.  Then, cut out the, very flimsy, dated 1959 vintage pattern pieces.

Some of the terms were new to me, such as binding the sleeve edges, adding tape to the sleeve seams and how to add the skirt to the bodice, while adding tape for strength.  However, I have some very old sewing books, which were so useful, and made it very enjoyable to be learning new stuff.  Though I machined the bottom of the skirt I didn't actually hem it, as I don't know the height of the woman who will be modelling it at a future vintage show.

I wish I could have repeated this, but in perhaps a retro sheeting, but the person wanted the pattern back, as well as her dress.

My thanks to J who was my super model, and I've stuck to my word and not shown her face here!

Commissions #1 Boat Curtains

Last year I was given three, yes three commissions for my sewing.  I was happy and pleased about this, but was so busy with 'work' stuff that I simply didn't get to them.  Yep, I felt guilty, really guilty actually, and stressed.

But, voilà!  I have, at last, completed all three.  The first of which I will show you the pictures of here today, and will save the others for the next few days, as I take photos of them.

The first is the boat curtains for my bezzy friend's lovely little boat.  What she wanted was me to decorate the curtain linings so that it brightened up the boat when it was out of use during the winter - what a brilliant idea!

Don't they look splendid?  Poor old little bruv had suffered a bit of damage on this trip, but is soon mended and they are travelling around in it for a whole month, soon.

I am really pleased with how they came out, and may be taking orders from her friends, who are very jealous, apparently!

More soon - about the dress from curtains, made with a pattern from 1959, and the charity bags.

ciao

Blog Workshops

I have recently had the pleasure of taking a couple of 'Build your own Blog' workshops, and have been so impressed with how well the people have learned.  Now, some of the people in the two groups just flew.  One called herself 'click happy' but others, looked, learned, took notes and best of all just played around with it.

Some were literally scared of what might be involved when they pressed a button on the keyboard - though all were guaranteed they would not blow anything up!  All were wary about what information they wanted to share with the Whole Wide World, and quite rightly one of the first things they wished to be shown was how to protect themselves and their family, friends or clients' confidentiality, while knowing how to get viewers to see their pages.

A few were very confused about the process, but I found that as each person thought about what they would use a blog for, they could apply it and so it would make sense.  Whether it was to be used for their business, a diary, or listing dates or recording events all found their own way to get the most out of their blog.

Welcome to our world, new bloggers!

A quiet den

A quiet sit down, with some sock knitting, a cushion and a book about caravans

some tea making stuff, an apple

and a view from the window.












Such peace.

I shall miss our old caravan, now it's been sold.  Ah well, it was great for the short time we had two caravans about the place.

But, all is not lost as we do have the newer 'van!